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BiographyHistory

Bio changes summary

Victor Williams was the son of Michael James and Ethel Williams, pioneers of the wheatgrowing area of Wyalkatchem, Western Australia. His father had been a prospector on the Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie goldfields. Williams spent his early years on the family farm before leaving to become a schoolteacher. He studied and taught for two years before World War II. Williams enlisted in the Australian Army on the 3 July 1942 and was on active service in Darwin, New Guinea and New Britain. He was discharged on 19 March 1946 and married that year.

After the war, Williams joined the struggle of workers for better conditions and was a member of the Waterside Workers Federation from 1953. He and his wife Joan (Justina Williams ) were both members of the Communist Party of Australia. She inspired many of his poems and her literary ability as a writer made her an ideal critic of his work. In 1945 his poem, 'Harvest Time', won the W. J. Miles prize in an Australia-wide competition.

Katharine Susannah Prichard was a close friend of Victor and Joan Williams, helping the publication of Hammers and Seagulls (1966) by the Australasian Book Society through royalties from her foreign rights. A poem by Williams, 'Katharine Susannah Prichard', was read at her funeral in 1969: 'The future gathers to your words and deeds, The hands you joined, no bombs can break apart, Writer and fighter in one human heart.' Williams also wrote political tracts such as Crisis on the Land : Who Will Bear the Burden? (1970?). As late as 1991 he wrote Who Wants War? : The Hidden Story in protest at the Iraq War.

Katharine Susannah Prichard wrote: 'There is, I think, a high, rare quality in Victor Williams' poetry. He fuses a passionate and sensuous vision of the earth he knows and loves with thought, direct and forceful, about the everyday life and work of men and women. He does this with a condensed imagery and a rythmic facility which gives an impression of the dynamic vitality and the broad humanism inspiring most of his poems.'